10 Best Famous Sundays Poems

Here is a collection of the top 10 all-time best famous Sundays poems. This is a select list of the best famous Sundays poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Sundays poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of sundays poems.

• All Famous Sundays Poems

 I 

The bitterness. the misery, the wretchedness of childhood 
Put me out of love with God. 
I can't believe in God's goodness; 
I can believe 
In many avenging gods. 
Most of all I believe 
In gods of bitter dullness, 
Cruel local gods 
Who scared my childhood. 

II 

I've seen people put 
A chrysalis in a match-box, 
"To see," they told me, "what sort of moth would come." 
But when it broke its shell 
It slipped and stumbled and fell about its prison 
And tried to climb to the light 
For space to dry its wings. 

That's how I was. 
Somebody found my chrysalis 
And shut it in a match-box. 
My shrivelled wings were beaten, 
Shed their colours in dusty scales 
Before the box was opened 
For the moth to fly. 

III 

I hate that town; 
I hate the town I lived in when I was little; 
I hate to think of it. 
There wre always clouds, smoke, rain 
In that dingly little valley. 
It rained; it always rained. 
I think I never saw the sun until I was nine -- 
And then it was too late; 
Everything's too late after the first seven years. 

The long street we lived in 
Was duller than a drain 
And nearly as dingy. 
There were the big College 
And the pseudo-Gothic town-hall. 
There were the sordid provincial shops -- 
The grocer's, and the shops for women, 
The shop where I bought transfers, 
And the piano and gramaphone shop 
Where I used to stand 
Staring at the huge shiny pianos and at the pictures 
Of a white dog looking into a gramaphone. 

How dull and greasy and grey and sordid it was! 
On wet days -- it was always wet -- 
I used to kneel on a chair 
And look at it from the window. 

The dirty yellow trams 
Dragged noisily along 
With a clatter of wheels and bells 
And a humming of wires overhead. 
They threw up the filthy rain-water from the hollow lines 
And then the water ran back 
Full of brownish foam bubbles. 

There was nothing else to see -- 
It was all so dull -- 
Except a few grey legs under shiny black umbrellas 
Running along the grey shiny pavements; 
Sometimes there was a waggon 
Whose horses made a strange loud hollow sound 
With their hoofs 
Through the silent rain. 

And there was a grey museum 
Full of dead birds and dead insects and dead animals 
And a few relics of the Romans -- dead also. 
There was a sea-front, 
A long asphalt walk with a bleak road beside it, 
Three piers, a row of houses, 
And a salt dirty smell from the little harbour. 

I was like a moth -- 
Like one of those grey Emperor moths 
Which flutter through the vines at Capri. 
And that damned little town was my match-box, 
Against whose sides I beat and beat 
Until my wings were torn and faded, and dingy 
As that damned little town. 

IV 

At school it was just as dull as that dull High Street. 
The front was dull; 
The High Street and the other street were dull -- 
And there was a public park, I remember, 
And that was damned dull, too, 
With its beds of geraniums no one was allowed to pick, 
And its clipped lawns you weren't allowed to walk on, 
And the gold-fish pond you mustn't paddle in, 
And the gate made out of a whale's jaw-bones, 
And the swings, which were for "Board-School children," 
And its gravel paths. 

And on Sundays they rang the bells, 
From Baptist and Evangelical and Catholic churches. 
They had a Salvation Army. 
I was taken to a High Church; 
The parson's name was Mowbray, 
"Which is a good name but he thinks too much of it --" 
That's what I heard people say. 

I took a little black book 
To that cold, grey, damp, smelling church, 
And I had to sit on a hard bench, 
Wriggle off it to kneel down when they sang psalms 
And wriggle off it to kneel down when they prayed, 
And then there was nothing to do 
Except to play trains with the hymn-books. 

There was nothing to see, 
Nothing to do, 
Nothing to play with, 
Except that in an empty room upstairs 
There was a large tin box 
Containing reproductions of the Magna Charta, 
Of the Declaration of Independence 
And of a letter from Raleigh after the Armada. 
There were also several packets of stamps, 
Yellow and blue Guatemala parrots, 
Blue stags and red baboons and birds from Sarawak, 
Indians and Men-of-war 
From the United States, 
And the green and red portraits 
Of King Francobello 
Of Italy. 

V 

I don't believe in God. 
I do believe in avenging gods 
Who plague us for sins we never sinned 
But who avenge us. 

That's why I'll never have a child, 
Never shut up a chrysalis in a match-box 
For the moth to spoil and crush its brght colours, 
Beating its wings against the dingy prison-wall.

 All the endings in my life
rise up against me
like that sea of troubles
Shakespeare mixed
with metaphors;
like Vikings in their boats
singing Wagner,
like witches
burning at
the stake--
I submit
to my fate.

I know beginnings,
their sweetnesses,
and endings,
their bitternesses--
but I do not know
continuance--
I do not know
the sweet demi-boredom
of life as it lingers,
of man and wife
regarding each other
across a table of shared witnesses,
of the hand-in-hand dreams
of those who have slept
a half-century together
in a bed so used and familiar
it is rutted
with love.

I would know that
before this life closes,
a soulmate to share my roses--
I would make a spell
with long grey beard hairs
and powdered rosemary and rue,
with the jacket of a tux
for a tall man
with broad shoulders,
who loves to dance;
with one blue contact lens
for his bluest eyes;
with honey in a jar
for his love of me;
with salt in a dish
for his love of sex and skin;
with crushed rose petals
for our bed;
with tubes of cerulean blue
and vermilion and rose madder
for his artist's eye;
with a dented Land-Rover fender
for his love of travel;
with a poem by Blake
for his love of innocence
revealed by experience;
with soft rain
and a bare head;
with hand-in-hand dreams on Mondays
and the land of ****
on Sundays;
with mangoes, papayas
and limes,
and a house towering
above the sea.

Muse, I surrender
to thee.
Thy will be done,
not mine.

If this love spell
pleases you,
send me this lover,
this husband,
this dancing partner
for my empty bed
and let him fill me
from now
until I die.
I offer my bones,
my poems,
my luck with roses,
and the secret garden
I have found
walled in my center,
and the sunflower
who raises her head
despite her heavy seeds.

I am ready now, Muse,
to serve you faithfully
even with
a graceful dancing partner--
for I have learned
to stand alone.

Give me your blessing.
Let the next
epithalamion I write
be my own.
And let it last
more than the years
of my life--
and without the least
strain--
two lovers bareheaded
in a summer rain.

 Every month or so, Sundays, we walked the line,
The limit and the boundary. Past the sweet gum
Superb above the cabin, along the wall—
Stones gathered from the level field nearby
When first we cleared it. (Angry bumblebees
Stung the two mules. They kicked. Thirteen, I ran.)
And then the field: thread-leaf maple, deciduous
Magnolia, hybrid broom, and, further down,
In light shade, one Franklinia Alatamaha
In solstice bloom, all white, most graciously.
On the sunnier slope, the wild plums that my mother
Later would make preserves of, to give to friends
Or sell, in autumn, with the foxgrape, quince,
Elderberry, and muscadine. Around
The granite overhang, moist den of foxes;
Gradually up a long hill, high in pine,
Park-like, years of dry needles on the ground,
And dogwood, slopes the settlers terraced; pine
We cut at Christmas, berries, hollies, anise,
And cones for sale in Mister Haymore’s yard
In town, below the Courthouse Square. James Haymore,
One of the two good teachers at Boys’ High,
Ironic and demanding, chemistry;
Mary Lou Culver taught us English: essays,
Plot summaries, outlines, meters, kinds of clauses
(Noun, adjective, and adverb, five at a time),
Written each day and then revised, and she
Up half the night to read them once again
Through her pince-nez, under a single lamp.
Across the road, on a steeper hill, the settlers
Set a house, unpainted, the porch fallen in,
The road a red clay strip without a bridge,
A shallow stream that liked to overflow.
Oliver Brand’s mules pulled our station wagon
Out of the gluey mire, earth’s rust. Then, here
And there, back from the road, the specimen
Shrubs and small trees my father planted, some
Taller than we were, some in bloom, some berried,
And some we still brought water to. We always
Paused at the weed-filled hole beside the beech
That, one year, brought forth beech nuts by the thousands,
A hole still reminiscent of the man
Chewing tobacco in among his whiskers
My father happened on, who, discovered, told
Of dreaming he should dig there for the gold
And promised to give half of what he found. 

During the wars with Germany and Japan,
Descendents of the settlers, of Oliver Brand
And of that man built Flying Fortresses
For Lockheed, in Atlanta; now they build
Brick mansions in the woods they left, with lawns
To paved and lighted streets, azaleas, camellias
Blooming among the pines and tulip trees—
Mercedes Benz and Cadillac Republicans.
There was another stream further along 
Divided through a marsh, lined by the fence
We stretched to posts with Mister Garner’s help
The time he needed cash for his son’s bail
And offered all his place. A noble spring
Under the oak root cooled his milk and butter.
He called me “honey,” working with us there
(My father bought three acres as a gift),
His wife pale, hair a country orange, voice
Uncanny, like a ghost’s, through the open door
Behind her, chickens scratching on the floor.
Barred Rocks, our chickens; one, a rooster, splendid
Sliver and grey, red comb and long sharp spurs,
Once chased Aunt Jennie as far as the daphne bed
The two big king snakes were familiars of.
My father’s dog would challenge him sometimes
To laughter and applause. Once, in Stone Mountain,
Travelers, stopped for gas, drove off with Smokey;
Angrily, grievingly, leaving his work, my father
Traced the car and found them way far south,
Had them arrested and, bringing Smokey home,
Was proud as Sherlock Holmes, and happier.
Above the spring, my sister’s cats, black Amy,
Grey Junior, down to meet us. The rose trees,
Domestic, Asiatic, my father’s favorites.
The bridge, marauding dragonflies, the bullfrog,
Camellias cracked and blackened by the freeze,
Bay tree, mimosa, mountain laurel, apple, 
Monkey pine twenty feet high, banana shrub,
The owls’ tall pine curved like a flattened S.
The pump house Mort and I built block by block,
Smooth concrete floor, roof pale aluminum
Half-covered by a clematis, the pump 
Thirty feet down the mountain’s granite foot. 

Mort was the hired man sent to us by Fortune,
Childlike enough to lead us. He brought home,
Although he could not even drive a tractor,
Cheated, a worthless car, which we returned.
When, at the trial to garnishee his wages,
Frank Guess, the judge, Grandmother’s longtime neighbor,
Whose children my mother taught in Cradle Roll,
Heard Mort’s examination, he broke in
As if in disbelief on the bank’s attorneys:
“Gentlemen, must we continue this charade?”
Finally, past the compost heap, the garden,
Tomatoes and sweet corn for succotash,
Okra for frying, Kentucky Wonders, limas,
Cucumbers, squashes, leeks heaped round with soil,
Lavender, dill, parsley, and rosemary,
Tithonia and zinnias between the rows;
The greenhouse by the rock wall, used for cuttings
In late spring, frames to grow them strong for planting
Through winter into summer. Early one morning
Mort called out, lying helpless by the bridge.
His ashes we let drift where the magnolia
We planted as a stem divides the path
The others lie, too young, at Silver Hill,
Except my mother. Ninety-five, she lives
Three thousand miles away, beside the bare
Pacific, in rooms that overlook the Mission,
The Riviera, and the silver range 
La Cumbre east. Magnolia grandiflora
And one druidic live oak guard the view. 
Proudly around the walls, she shows her paintings
Of twenty years ago: the great oak’s arm
Extended, Zeuslike, straight and strong, wisteria
Tangled among the branches, amaryllis
Around the base; her cat, UC, at ease
In marigolds; the weeping cherry, pink
And white arms like a blessing to the blue
Bird feeder Mort made; cabin, scarlet sweet gum
Superb when tribes migrated north and south.
Alert, still quick of speech, a little blind,
Active, ready for laughter, open to fear,
Pity, and wonder that such things may be,
Some Sundays, I think, she must walk the line,
Aunt Jennie, too, if she were still alive,
And Eleanor, whose story is untold,
Their presences like muses, prompting me
In my small study, all listening to the sea,
All of one mind, the true posterity.

 Interr'd beneath this marble stone, 
Lie saunt'ring Jack and idle Joan. 
While rolling threescore years and one 
Did round this globe their courses run; 
If human things went ill or well; 
If changing empires rose or fell; 
The morning passed, the evening came, 
And found this couple still the same. 
They walk'd and eat, good folks: what then? 
Why then they walk'd and eat again: 
They soundly slept the night away: 
They did just nothing all the day: 
And having buried children four, 
Would not take pains to try for more. 
Nor sister either had, nor brother: 
They seemed just tallied for each other. 
Their moral and economy 
Most perfectly they made agree: 
Each virtue kept its proper bound, 
Nor tresspass'd on the other's ground. 
Nor fame, nor censure they regarded: 
They neither punish'd nor rewarded. 
He cared not what the footmen did: 
Her maids she neither prais'd nor chid: 
So ev'ry servant took his course; 
And bad at first, they all grew worse. 
Slothful disorder fill'd his stable; 
And sluttish plenty deck'd her table. 
Their beer was strong; their wine was port; 
Their meal was large; their grace was short. 
They gave the poor the remnant-meat 
Just when it grew not fit to eat. 
They paid the church and parish rate; 
And took, but read not the receipt; 
For which they claim'd their Sunday's due, 
Of slumb'ring in an upper pew. 
No man's defects sought they to know; 
So never made themselves a foe. 
No man's good deeds did they commend; 
So never rais'd themselves a friend. 
Nor cherish'd they relations poor: 
That might decrease their present store: 
Nor barn nor house did they repair: 
That might oblige their future heir. 
They neither added, nor confounded: 
They neither wanted, nor abounded. 
Each Christmas they accompts did clear; 
And wound their bottom through the year. 
Nor tear, nor smile did they employ 
At news of public grief, or joy. 
When bells were rung, and bonfires made, 
If asked they ne'er denied their aid: 
Their jug was to the ringers carried, 
Whoever either died, or married. 
Their billet at the fire was found, 
Whoever was depos'd or crown'd. 
Nor good, nor bad, nor fools, nor wise; 
They would not learn, nor could advise; 
Without love, hatred, joy, or fear, 
They led--a kind of--as it were: 
Nor wish'd nor car'd, nor laugh'd nor cry'd: 
And so they liv'd; and so they died.

 Have you heard of one Humpty Dumpty
How he fell with a roll and a rumble
And curled up like Lord Olofa Crumple
By the butt of the Magazine Wall,
 (Chorus) Of the Magazine Wall,
 Hump, helmet and all?

He was one time our King of the Castle
Now he's kicked about like a rotten old parsnip.
And from Green street he'll be sent by order of His Worship
To the penal jail of Mountjoy
 (Chorus) To the jail of Mountjoy!
 Jail him and joy.

He was fafafather of all schemes for to bother us
Slow coaches and immaculate contraceptives for the populace,
Mare's milk for the sick, seven dry Sundays a week,
Openair love and religion's reform,
 (Chorus) And religious reform,
 Hideous in form.

Arrah, why, says you, couldn't he manage it?
I'll go bail, my fine dairyman darling,
Like the bumping bull of the Cassidys
All your butter is in your horns.
 (Chorus) His butter is in his horns.
 Butter his horns!

(Repeat) Hurrah there, Hosty, frosty Hosty, change that shirt
 on ye,
Rhyme the rann, the king of all ranns!


Balbaccio, balbuccio!

We had chaw chaw chops, chairs, chewing gum, the chicken-pox
 and china chambers
Universally provided by this soffsoaping salesman.
Small wonder He'll Cheat E'erawan our local lads nicknamed him.
When Chimpden first took the floor
 (Chorus) With his bucketshop store
 Down Bargainweg, Lower.

So snug he was in his hotel premises sumptuous
But soon we'll bonfire all his trash, tricks and trumpery
And 'tis short till sheriff Clancy'll be winding up his unlimited
 company
With the bailiff's bom at the door,
 (Chorus) Bimbam at the door.
 Then he'll bum no more.

Sweet bad luck on the waves washed to our island
The hooker of that hammerfast viking
And Gall's curse on the day when Eblana bay
Saw his black and tan man-o'-war.
 (Chorus) Saw his man-o'-war
 On the harbour bar.

Where from? roars Poolbeg. Cookingha'pence, he bawls
 Donnez-moi scampitle, wick an wipin'fampiny
Fingal Mac Oscar Onesine Bargearse Boniface
Thok's min gammelhole Norveegickers moniker
Og as ay are at gammelhore Norveegickers cod.
 (Chorus) A Norwegian camel old cod.
 He is, begod.


Lift it, Hosty, lift it, ye devil, ye! up with the rann,
 the rhyming rann!

It was during some fresh water garden pumping
Or, according to the Nursing Mirror, while admiring the monkeys
That our heavyweight heathen Humpharey
Made bold a maid to woo
 (Chorus) Woohoo, what'll she doo!
 The general lost her maidenloo!

He ought to blush for himself, the old hayheaded philosopher,
For to go and shove himself that way on top of her.
Begob, he's the crux of the catalogue
Of our antediluvial zoo,
 (Chorus) Messrs Billing and Coo.
 Noah's larks, good as noo.

He was joulting by Wellinton's monument
Our rotorious hippopopotamuns
When some bugger let down the backtrap of the omnibus
And he caught his death of fusiliers,
 (Chorus) With his rent in his rears.
 Give him six years.

'Tis sore pity for his innocent poor children
But look out for his missus legitimate!
When that frew gets a grip of old Earwicker
Won't there be earwigs on the green?
 (Chorus) Big earwigs on the green,
 The largest ever you seen.

 Suffoclose! Shikespower! Seudodanto! Anonymoses!

Then we'll have a free trade Gael's band and mass meeting
For to sod him the brave son of Scandiknavery.
And we'll bury him down in Oxmanstown
Along with the devil and the Danes,
 (Chorus) With the deaf and dumb Danes,
 And all their remains.

And not all the king's men nor his horses
Will resurrect his corpus
For there's no true spell in Connacht or hell
 (bis) That's able to raise a Cain.

 1992

1) I was born in a Free City, near the North Sea.

2) In the year of my birth, money was shredded into 
confetti. A loaf of bread cost a million marks. Of 
course I do not remember this.

3) Parents and grandparents hovered around me. The 
world I lived in had a soft voice and no claws.

4) A cornucopia filled with treats took me into a building 
with bells. A wide-bosomed teacher took me in.

5) At home the bookshelves connected heaven and earth.

6) On Sundays the city child waded through pinecones 
and primrose marshes, a short train ride away.

7) My country was struck by history more deadly than 
earthquakes or hurricanes.

8) My father was busy eluding the monsters. My mother 
told me the walls had ears. I learned the burden of secrets.

9) I moved into the too bright days, the too dark nights 
of adolescence.

10) Two parents, two daughters, we followed the sun 
and the moon across the ocean. My grandparents stayed 
behind in darkness.

11) In the new language everyone spoke too fast. Eventually 
I caught up with them.

12) When I met you, the new language became the language 
of love.

13) The death of the mother hurt the daughter into poetry. 
The daughter became a mother of daughters.

14) Ordinary life: the plenty and thick of it. Knots tying 
threads to everywhere. The past pushed away, the future left 
unimagined for the sake of the glorious, difficult, passionate 
present.

15) Years and years of this.

16) The children no longer children. An old man's pain, an 
old man's loneliness.

17) And then my father too disappeared.

18) I tried to go home again. I stood at the door to my 
childhood, but it was closed to the public.

19) One day, on a crowded elevator, everyone's face was younger 
than mine.

20) So far, so good. The brilliant days and nights are 
breathless in their hurry. We follow, you and I.

 I had a gig-horse, and I called him Pleasure 
Because on Sundays for a little jaunt 
He was so fast and showy, quite a treasure; 
Although he sometimes kicked and shied aslant. 
I had a chaise, and christened it Enjoyment, 
With yellow body and the wheels of red, 
Because it was only used for one employment, 
Namely, to go wherever Pleasure led. 
I had a wife, her nickname was Delight: 
A son called Frolic, who was never still: 
Alas! how often dark succeeds to bright! 
Delight was thrown, and Frolic had a spill, 
Enjoyment was upset and shattered quite, 
And Pleasure fell a splitter on Paine's Hill.

 Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay, 
That was built in such a logical way
It ran a hundred years to a day,
And then, of a sudden, it -- ah, but stay,
I'll tell you what happened without delay,
Scaring the parson into fits,
Frightening people out of their wits, --
Have you ever heard of that, I say?

Seventeen hundred and fifty-five.
Georgius Secundus was then alive, --
Snuffy old drone from the German hive.
That was the year when Lisbon-town
Saw the earth open and gulp her down,
And Braddock's army was done so brown,
Left without a scalp to its crown.
It was on the terrible Earthquake-day
That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay.

Now in building of chaises, I tell you what,
There is always somewhere a weakest spot, --
In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill,
In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill,
In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace, -- lurking still,
Find it somewhere you must and will, --
Above or below, or within or without, --
And that's the reason, beyond a doubt,
A chaise breaks down, but does n't wear out.

But the Deacon swore (as Deacons do,
With an "I dew vum," or an "I tell yeou")
He would build one shay to beat the taown
'N' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun';
It should be so built that it could n' break daown:
"Fur," said the Deacon, "'t 's mighty plain
Thut the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain;
'N' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain,
Is only jest
T' make that place uz strong uz the rest."

So the Deacon inquired of the village folk
Where he could find the strongest oak,
That could n't be split nor bent nor broke, --
That was for spokes and floor and sills;
He sent for lancewood to make the thills;
The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees,
The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese,
But lasts like iron for things like these;
The hubs of logs from the "Settler's ellum," --
Last of its timber, -- they could n't sell 'em,
Never an axe had seen their chips,
And the wedges flew from between their lips,
Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips;
Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw,
Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too,
Steel of the finest, bright and blue;
Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide;
Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide
Found in the pit when the tanner died.
That was the way he "put her through." 
"There!" said the Deacon, "naow she'll dew!"

Do! I tell you, I rather guess
She was a wonder, and nothing less!
Colts grew horses, beards turned gray,
Deacon and deaconess dropped away,
Children and grandchildren -- where were they?
But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay
As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day!

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED; -- it came and found
The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound.
Eighteen hundred increased by ten; --
"Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then.
Eighteen hundred and twenty came; --
Running as usual; much the same.
Thirty and forty at last arrive,
And then come fifty, and FIFTY-FIVE.

Little of all we value here
Wakes on the morn of its hundreth year
Without both feeling and looking *****.
In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth,
So far as I know, but a tree and truth.
(This is a moral that runs at large;
Take it. -- You're welcome. -- No extra charge.)

FIRST OF NOVEMBER, -- the Earthquake-day, --
There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay,
A general flavor of mild decay,
But nothing local, as one may say.
There could n't be, -- for the Deacon's art
Had made it so like in every part
That there was n't a chance for one to start.
For the wheels were just as strong as the thills,
And the floor was just as strong as the sills,
And the panels just as strong as the floor,
And the whipple-tree neither less nor more,
And the back crossbar as strong as the fore,
And spring and axle and hub encore.
And yet, as a whole, it is past a doubt
In another hour it will be worn out!

First of November, 'Fifty-five!
This morning the parson takes a drive.
Now, small boys, get out of the way!
Here comes the wonderful one-horse shay,
Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay.
"Huddup!" said the parson. -- Off went they.
The parson was working his Sunday's text, --
Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed
At what the -- Moses -- was coming next.
All at once the horse stood still,
Close by the meet'n'-house on the hill.
First a shiver, and then a thrill,
Then something decidedly like a spill, --
And the parson was sitting upon a rock,
At half past nine by the meet'n-house clock, --
Just the hour of the Earthquake shock!
What do you think the parson found,
When he got up and stared around?
The poor old chaise in a heap or mound,
As if it had been to the mill and ground!
You see, of course, if you're not a dunce,
How it went to pieces all at once, --
All at once, and nothing first, --
Just as bubbles do when they burst.

End of the wonderful one-hoss shay.
Logic is logic. That's all I say.

 UPON 1 a simmer Sunday morn
 When Nature’s face is fair,
I walked forth to view the corn,
 An’ snuff the caller air.
The rising sun owre Galston muirs
 Wi’ glorious light was glintin;
The hares were hirplin down the furrs,
 The lav’rocks they were chantin
 Fu’ sweet that day.


As lightsomely I glowr’d abroad,
 To see a scene sae gay,
Three hizzies, early at the road,
 Cam skelpin up the way.
Twa had manteeles o” dolefu’ black,
 But ane wi’ lyart lining;
The third, that gaed a wee a-back,
 Was in the fashion shining
 Fu’ gay that day.


The twa appear’d like sisters twin,
 In feature, form, an’ claes;
Their visage wither’d, lang an’ thin,
 An’ sour as only slaes:
The third cam up, hap-stap-an’-lowp,
 As light as ony lambie,
An’ wi’a curchie low did stoop,
 As soon as e’er she saw me,
 Fu’ kind that day.


Wi’ bonnet aff, quoth I, “Sweet lass,
 I think ye seem to ken me;
I’m sure I’ve seen that bonie face
 But yet I canna name ye.”
Quo’ she, an’ laughin as she spak,
 An’ taks me by the han’s,
“Ye, for my sake, hae gien the feck
 Of a’ the ten comman’s
 A screed some day.”


“My name is Fun—your cronie dear,
 The nearest friend ye hae;
An’ this is Superstitution here,
 An’ that’s Hypocrisy.
I’m gaun to Mauchline Holy Fair,
 To spend an hour in daffin:
Gin ye’ll go there, yon runkl’d pair,
 We will get famous laughin
 At them this day.”


Quoth I, “Wi’ a’ my heart, I’ll do’t;
 I’ll get my Sunday’s sark on,
An’ meet you on the holy spot;
 Faith, we’se hae fine remarkin!”
Then I gaed hame at crowdie-time,
 An’ soon I made me ready;
For roads were clad, frae side to side,
 Wi’ mony a weary body
 In droves that day.


Here farmers gash, in ridin graith,
 Gaed hoddin by their cotters;
There swankies young, in braw braid-claith,
 Are springing owre the gutters.
The lasses, skelpin barefit, thrang,
 In silks an’ scarlets glitter;
Wi’ sweet-milk cheese, in mony a whang,
 An’ farls, bak’d wi’ butter,
 Fu’ crump that day.


When by the plate we set our nose,
 Weel heaped up wi’ ha’pence,
A greedy glowr black-bonnet throws,
 An’ we maun draw our tippence.
Then in we go to see the show:
 On ev’ry side they’re gath’rin;
Some carrying dails, some chairs an’ stools,
 An’ some are busy bleth’rin
 Right loud that day.


Here stands a shed to fend the show’rs,
 An’ screen our countra gentry;
There “Racer Jess, 2 an’ twa-three whores,
 Are blinkin at the entry.
Here sits a raw o’ tittlin jads,
 Wi’ heaving breast an’ bare neck;
An’ there a batch o’ wabster lads,
 Blackguarding frae Kilmarnock,
 For fun this day.


Here, some are thinkin on their sins,
 An’ some upo’ their claes;
Ane curses feet that fyl’d his shins,
 Anither sighs an’ prays:
On this hand sits a chosen swatch,
 Wi’ screwed-up, grace-proud faces;
On that a set o’ chaps, at watch,
 Thrang winkin on the lasses
 To chairs that day.


O happy is that man, an’ blest!
 Nae wonder that it pride him!
Whase ain dear lass, that he likes best,
 Comes clinkin down beside him!
Wi’ arms repos’d on the chair back,
 He sweetly does compose him;
Which, by degrees, slips round her neck,
 An’s loof upon her bosom,
 Unkend that day.


Now a’ the congregation o’er
 Is silent expectation;
For Moodie 3 speels the holy door,
 Wi’ tidings o’ damnation:
Should Hornie, as in ancient days,
 ’Mang sons o’ God present him,
The vera sight o’ Moodie’s face,
 To ’s ain het hame had sent him
 Wi’ fright that day.


Hear how he clears the point o’ faith
 Wi’ rattlin and wi’ thumpin!
Now meekly calm, now wild in wrath,
 He’s stampin, an’ he’s jumpin!
His lengthen’d chin, his turned-up snout,
 His eldritch squeel an’ gestures,
O how they fire the heart devout,
 Like cantharidian plaisters
 On sic a day!


But hark! the tent has chang’d its voice,
 There’s peace an’ rest nae langer;
For a’ the real judges rise,
 They canna sit for anger,
Smith 4 opens out his cauld harangues,
 On practice and on morals;
An’ aff the godly pour in thrangs,
 To gie the jars an’ barrels
 A lift that day.


What signifies his barren shine,
 Of moral powers an’ reason?
His English style, an’ gesture fine
 Are a’ clean out o’ season.
Like Socrates or Antonine,
 Or some auld pagan heathen,
The moral man he does define,
 But ne’er a word o’ faith in
 That’s right that day.


In guid time comes an antidote
 Against sic poison’d nostrum;
For Peebles, 5 frae the water-fit,
 Ascends the holy rostrum:
See, up he’s got, the word o’ God,
 An’ meek an’ mim has view’d it,
While Common-sense has taen the road,
 An’ aff, an’ up the Cowgate 6
 Fast, fast that day.


Wee Miller 7 neist the guard relieves,
 An’ Orthodoxy raibles,
Tho’ in his heart he weel believes,
 An’ thinks it auld wives’ fables:
But faith! the birkie wants a manse,
 So, cannilie he hums them;
Altho’ his carnal wit an’ sense
 Like hafflins-wise o’ercomes him
 At times that day.


Now, butt an’ ben, the change-house fills,
 Wi’ yill-caup commentators;
Here ’s cryin out for bakes and gills,
 An’ there the pint-stowp clatters;
While thick an’ thrang, an’ loud an’ lang,
 Wi’ logic an’ wi’ scripture,
They raise a din, that in the end
 Is like to breed a rupture
 O’ wrath that day.


Leeze me on drink! it gies us mair
 Than either school or college;
It kindles wit, it waukens lear,
 It pangs us fou o’ knowledge:
Be’t whisky-gill or penny wheep,
 Or ony stronger potion,
It never fails, or drinkin deep,
 To kittle up our notion,
 By night or day.


The lads an’ lasses, blythely bent
 To mind baith saul an’ body,
Sit round the table, weel content,
 An’ steer about the toddy:
On this ane’s dress, an’ that ane’s leuk,
 They’re makin observations;
While some are cozie i’ the neuk,
 An’ forming assignations
 To meet some day.


But now the L—’s ain trumpet touts,
 Till a’ the hills are rairin,
And echoes back return the shouts;
 Black Russell is na sparin:
His piercin words, like Highlan’ swords,
 Divide the joints an’ marrow;
His talk o’ Hell, whare devils dwell,
 Our vera “sauls does harrow”
 Wi’ fright that day!


A vast, unbottom’d, boundless pit,
 Fill’d fou o’ lowin brunstane,
Whase raging flame, an’ scorching heat,
 Wad melt the hardest whun-stane!
The half-asleep start up wi’ fear,
 An’ think they hear it roarin;
When presently it does appear,
 ’Twas but some neibor snorin
 Asleep that day.


’Twad be owre lang a tale to tell,
 How mony stories past;
An’ how they crouded to the yill,
 When they were a’ dismist;
How drink gaed round, in cogs an’ caups,
 Amang the furms an’ benches;
An’ cheese an’ bread, frae women’s laps,
 Was dealt about in lunches
 An’ dawds that day.


In comes a gawsie, gash guidwife,
 An’ sits down by the fire,
Syne draws her kebbuck an’ her knife;
 The lasses they are shyer:
The auld guidmen, about the grace
 Frae side to side they bother;
Till some ane by his bonnet lays,
 An’ gies them’t like a tether,
 Fu’ lang that day.


Waesucks! for him that gets nae lass,
 Or lasses that hae naething!
Sma’ need has he to say a grace,
 Or melvie his braw claithing!
O wives, be mindfu’ ance yoursel’
 How bonie lads ye wanted;
An’ dinna for a kebbuck-heel
 Let lasses be affronted
 On sic a day!


Now Clinkumbell, wi’ rattlin tow,
 Begins to jow an’ croon;
Some swagger hame the best they dow,
 Some wait the afternoon.
At slaps the billies halt a blink,
 Till lasses strip their shoon:
Wi’ faith an’ hope, an’ love an’ drink,
 They’re a’ in famous tune
 For crack that day.


How mony hearts this day converts
 O’ sinners and o’ lasses!
Their hearts o’ stane, gin night, are gane
 As saft as ony flesh is:
There’s some are fou o’ love divine;
 There’s some are fou o’ brandy;
An’ mony jobs that day begin,
 May end in houghmagandie
 Some ither day.


 Note 1. “Holy Fair” is a common phrase in the west of Scotland for a sacramental occasion.—R. B. [back]
Note 2. Racer Jess (d. 1813) was a half-witted daughter of Poosie Nansie. She was a great pedestrian. [back]
Note 3. Rev. Alexander Moodie of Riccarton. [back]
Note 4. Rev. George Smith of Galston. [back]
Note 5. Rev. Wm. Peebles of Newton-upon-Ayr. [back]
Note 6. A street so called which faces the tent in Mauchline.—R. B. [back]
Note 7. Rev. Alex. Miller, afterward of Kilmaurs. [back]

 Memories bursting like tears or waves

On some lonely Adriatic shore

Beating again and again

Threshings of green sea foam

Flecked like the marble Leonardo

Chipped for his ‘Moses’.

And my tears came as suddenly

In that dream, criss-crossed

With memory and desire.

Grandad Nicky had worked

Down the pits for a pittance

To bring up his six children

But nothing left over for more

Than a few nuts and an orange

For six Christmas stockings

So hopefully hung, weighted by pennies,

Stretched across the black mantle.

So Lawrence-like and yet not, grandad

A strict Methodist who read only a vast Bible

Hunched in his fireside chair insisting

On chapel three times on Sundays.

Only in retirement did joy and wisdom

Enter him, abandoning chapel he took

To the Friends or Quakers as they called them then

And somehow at seventy the inner light

Consumed him.

Gruff but kind was my impression:

He would take me for walks

Along abandoned railways to the shutdown

Pipeworks where my three uncles

Worked their early manhood through.

It would have delighted Auden and perhaps

That was the bridge between us

Though we were of different generations

And by the time I began to write he had died.

All are gone except some few who may live still

But in their dotage.After my mother’s funeral

None wanted contact: I had been judged in my absence

And found wanting.

Durham was not my county,

Hardly my country, memories from childhood

Of Hunwick Village with its single cobbled street

Of squat stone cottages and paved yards

With earth closets and stacks of sawn logs

Perfuming the air with their sap

In a way only French poets could say

And that is why we have no word but clich?

‘Reflect’ or ‘make come alive’ or other earthbound

Anglicanisms; yet it is there in Valery Larbaud

‘J’ai senti pour la premiere fois toute la douceur de vivre’-

I experienced for the first time all the joy of living.

I quote of their plenitude to mock the absurdity

Of English poets who have no time for Francophiles

Better the ‘O altitudo’ of earlier generations –

Wallace Stevens’ "French and English

Are one language indivisible."

That scent of sawdust, the milkcart the pony pulled

Each morning over the cobbles, the earthenware jug

I carried to be filled, ladle by shining ladle,

From the great churns and there were birds singing

In the still blue over the fields beyond the village

But because I was city-bred I could not name them.

I write to please myself: ‘Only other poets read poems’